Monday, January 7, 2013

This past weekend, I participated in the 24-hour Comic Challenge in Toronto, hosted by the Comic Book Embassy and Comic Book Bootcamp. The challenge? Create a 24-page comic book in as many hours.

The event took place at the Comic Book Lounge on College, where 34 comic book creators sat down and did their best to meet the challenge. Some people finished their comic in only a few hours. Others took most of day. Several people didn't finish all 24 pages, though the work they DID produce was gorgeous.

For my part, I teamed up with Rebecca Slack (teams were allowed for this event). I wrote, she illustrated. I also handled lettering (which would explain, you know, the lettering) and even drew a three page sequence when the going got tough. We didn't come to the event with any material pre-planned, though we had worked out the best food to bring to ensure that I didn't get the runs partway through or anything like that.

I'm happy to report that we finished our comic (with a full six hours to spare!), which can be read below. Now, it would be easy to undersell this comic with words like "oh well, this wasn't bad for 24 hours" or humble stuff like that, but I'm not going to lie: I'm EXTREMELY happy with how this turned out. I think Rebecca fucking knocked it out of the park, and I still giggle at my own jokes. And for the record, yes, I realize there's a grammatical error on page four, but I caught it outside of the 24 hour window, and therefore didn't edit it.

And that's it! Thanks so much to everyone involved. I had gone in to the event with a fair amount of dread, but the whole experience was an absolute blast.

If you want to read other comics created during the event, there's a list of all the creators who participated (as well as links to finished products) here. You should check it out; there's some great stuff there.

To read about the inception of the very first 24-hour Comic Challenge, check out Scott McCloud's blog here.